1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a feeding apparatus including a cassette unit that can be mounted and dismounted to/from the feeding apparatus, the cassette unit having a movable cassette hopper on which a housed recording medium is to be placed; and a locking section that holds the attitude of the cassette hopper and a recording apparatus equipped with the feeding apparatus.
Examples of the recording apparatus of this invention include an ink jet printer, a wire dot printer, a laser printer, a line printer, a copying machine, and a facsimile machine.
2. Related Art
As shown in JP-A-2006-103859, a cassette that can be mounted and dismounted to/from a recording-apparatus main body is generally composed of multiple components including a casing, an in-cassette hopper, a cover, and a shutter. The casing is a member for covering paper, which is an example of a recording medium, housed in a cassette. The in-cassette hopper is movable to move placed paper toward and away from the feed roller of the recording-apparatus main body.
The recording-apparatus main body has a hopper that can move toward and away from the feed roller. Accordingly, with the cassette mounted to the recording-apparatus main body, the in-cassette hopper can move toward and away from the feed roller by engaging with the hopper. This allows the feed roller to pick up and feed the paper.
However, the in-cassette hopper can move in the cassette in a state in which the cassette is dismounted from the recording-apparatus main body by the user. This may cause the in-cassette hopper to move during transportation. The movement of the in-cassette hopper may cause collision with the casing to generate pattering noise. The movement of the in-cassette hopper may also cause collision with the paper to damage the recording surface of the paper.